Not Applicable
Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a golf club head. More specifically, the present invention relates to a golf club head with a face insert.
2. Description of the Related Art
High performance drivers employ relatively thin, high strength face materials. These faces are either formed into the curved face shape then welded into a driver body component around the face perimeter, or forged into a cup shape and connected to a body by either welding or adhesive bonding at a distance offset from the face of up to 0.75 inch. The faces formed from sheet material have an advantage in slightly superior material properties over cup-shape faces forged from round bar, and noticeably lower production costs.
However, in the formed sheet approach, the position of the weld and the structural characteristics of the surrounding body component have greater bearing on the stiffness of the face than with cup-shape faces. The stiffness of the face affects both the performance of the face-in terms of golf ball rebound speed and the durability of the face under repeated impact loading.
In a popular embodiment of the sheet-formed face insert driver, the weld between the formed face insert and the investment cast driver body is located on the striking face, a small distance from the face perimeter.
It is common practice for the face insert to be of uniform thickness and to design the surrounding driver body component to be of equal thickness. In this way there is continuity of face thickness across the weld.
Several patents discloses face inserts. Anderson, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,624,437, 5,094,383, 5,255,918, 5,261,663 and 5,261,664 disclose a golf club head having a full body composed of a cast metal material and a face insert composed of a hot forged metal material.
Viste, U.S. Pat. No. 5,282,624 discloses a golf club head with a cast metal body and a forged steel face insert with grooves on the exterior surface and the interior surface of the face insert and having a thickness of 3 mm.
Rogers, U.S. Pat. No. 3,970,236, discloses an iron club head with a formed metal face plate insert fusion bonded to a cast iron body.
Galloway, et alii, U.S. Pat. No. 6,354,962 discloses a golf club head of a face cup design.
However, none of the prior art patents disclose a means for achieving material properties and cost savings of the face inserts with the performance properties of the face-cup design.
The present invention overcomes the problems of the prior art by providing a golf club head that has a body with a striking plate insert in which the body has a front wall perimeter region that is thinner than the striking plate insert. This allows the golf club head of the present invention to have similar performance to a golf club head with a face cup design while having the material properties and cost savings of a golf club head with a face insert.
Having briefly described the present invention, the above and further objects, features and advantages thereof will be recognized by those skilled in the pertinent art from the following detailed description of the invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.